he frame,
and so gave predominance to the left current. One cannot help
conjecturally anticipating, by the way, that with left-handed diviners,
the divining rod will be found habitually to move the wrong way.

But it will not do _now_, to let this indication of a curious
physiological element pass slurred over and unheeded,--this evidence so
singularly furnished by the Count de Tristan's experiments, of a
positive difference between the right and left halves of the frame, as
if our bodies were the subjects of a transverse polarity. I expect it is
too late to pass over now any such facts, the very genuineness of which
derives confirmation, from their pointing to a conclusion so new to, and
unexpected by their observer, yet recently made certain through an
entirely different order of phenomena, observed by one clearly not
cognisant of the Count de Tristan's researches.

I allude to the investigations of the Baron Freyherr von Reichenbach,
published in Wohler and Liebig's "Annals of Chemistry," and already
translated for the benefit of the English reader, and familiar to the
reading public.

I take it for granted, Archy, that you have read the book I refer to,
and that I have only to bring to your recollection two or three of the
facts mentioned in it, bearing upon the present point.

Then you remember that Von Reichenbach has shown, that the two ends of a
large crystal, moved along and near the surface of a limb, in certain
sensitive subjects, produced decided but different sensations, one that
of a draught of cool air, the other of a draught of warm air. That the
proximity of the northward pole of a magnet again produces the former,
of the southward pole the latter; of the negative wire of a voltaic
pile, the former, of the positive wire, the latter; finally, that _the
two hands_ are equally and similarly efficient, the right acting like
the negative influence, the left like the positive, of those above
specified. Von Reichenbach came to the conclusion, from these and other
experiments, that the two lateral halves of the human body have opposite
relations to the influence, the existence of which he has proved, while
he has in part developed its laws. And he throws out the very idea of a
transverse polarity reigning in the animal frame. Do you remember, in
confirmation of it, one of the most curious experiments which he leads
Fraeulein Maix to execute; valueless it might be thought if it stood
alone, but joined with p